LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow/YMMV
YMMV Page for the storyline of LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow. *'Acceptable Targets:' **Religious zealots and cultists are often portrayed as homicidal, hypocritical and fanatic in this story. **Any characters who never accepts traditional culture or respect history are criticized. **Corrupt officials and people who goes by the book are panned in this story. **Any traitors to their kind, particularly those who betrays for their own personal gain and/or their own dear life, are criticized through this story. *'Acceptable Political Targets:' This storyline also gives several satire towards the modern United States politicians and the acts of hegemony, comparing the modern USA to the Revolutionary Era, and panned the policies and acts of Donald Trump. There are also villains based on many far-right politicians, including Japanese far-right politicians. Also, villains based off Democratic Progressive Party and the entire Pan-Green Coalition from the island of Taiwan, China, also counted. *'Alternative Character Interpretation:' **Either Carl Robinson is a Jerk-ass Woobie who is capable of being redeemed or a war criminal who, regardless of his Freudian Excuse, is a collaborator of a Knight Templar and provided her the manpower to cause a biochemical terrorism act all the while knowing that she intended to unleash it on the capital city of England. As a matter of fact, Carl later slaughters the House of Lords, as well as attacking London citizens to unleash revenge upon the world, and tries to take down Maria for revenge, even by means of compromising his teammates, like shooting down several Langdon Orphan soldiers with snipers for hurting innocent people (Justified, though). It only makes his culpability all the more damning with some seeing his late act redemption as both unearned and unmerited compared to the scale of his actions. **'Baccarat Blueberry'. Is he genuinely in love with Lillian Lime, or is he unconsciously attracted to her simply because she can save him from her Stalker with a Crush? When he comforts Helene at the end of her arc's first half, is it because he really loves and/or pities Helene or because he's trying to save Lillian? It's interesting to note that both Helene and Lillian explicitly say they love Baccarat and make that declaration to her, he never says it back to either of them, not even in song. *'Anti-Climax Boss:' The first battle against Evil Christine, due to time restraint, had been reduced into an anti-climatic battle that ended up destroying her in a rather ridiculous way. However, given to the fact that Christine will revive in the future and regained her original personality, this will hopefully be altered. *'Arc Fatigue:' Even the author himself had admitted that Firenza Junior spinoff now suffers this problem as the story develops more on characteristics instead of progress, as one of the intentioned Story Film episode, detailing the prologue of the Battle of London, was now cut into three individual episodes before the Dome was inactivated and the Firenza Blood was spread, announcing the start of the Battle's climax. *'Author's Saving Throw:' **The fratricide of Christine was pinned on her evil counterpart, known as Entisrich, while the original Christine showed remorse over her actions. Her plans in War Arc is more prone into strategy which fits her character more. Later, Entisrich is partly Rescued From the Scrappy Heap after she was revealed to be the first Zodiac Demon ever appeared in Sleepy Hollow, explaining her psychotic nature and later making her a much more dangerous foe. **Carl Robinson's improvised flashbacks in Firenza Junior which gives him a more sympathetic tone for being a jerk. **Episode 15 of Firenza Junior, a Deconstruction of Recap Episode, actually recounted several events happened in the first part of the story and Retconned them into False Memory, also filling some more explanation in the story to make the story more in sense. Therefore, after viewing Episode 15, you would know that the story was already dark, and some if not all of the absurd moments were either imagination or Played For Drama. See Big-Lipped Alligator Moment for more explanation. *'Badass Decay:' **Unfortunately, Christine Van Bilj suffered from such when she was finally introduced as an egocentric and sadistic creep who killed her brother and then becoming a fiend that is no better than Lady Van Tassel, no longer showing her love and protection towards her brother (shown by Colin's split personality) and spent the entire episode of Christine's Might whining about herself. In spite of this, it was not until Haunting Past Sub Arc that gave her a better personality via flashbacks, showing at least she had some decency before she turned insane. **Subverted with Maria Arzonia during the London Battle, where she was dragged into an illusion of false happiness with her mother (later revealed to be a Frankenstein doppelganger), completely falling in a trap and almost got killed by the blade with the Blackness. She would be killed had Esther Blanchett never arrived to save her. However, it's eventually subverted completely after the Dome incident, where Maria struggled with her injures and tried to reach Carl, while Esther tried to save Abel and deactivate the Dome. It's in fact a ploy to give other characters more screen time to show their development. ***As shown in later episodes, Esther and Carl gets the main spotlight during the time Maria struggled with her injuries. The story added more on Carl's POV to amplify his titular male protagonist status. What was more, Maria took her failure as a lesson and eventually, she warned Katarina about Vira Hermes when Katarina mistook Vira as after their encounter, since Maria had fall for the similar experience which turned out to be a ruse. *'Base-Breaking Characters:' **Some people sympathizes Esther Blanchett due to her desperation and intentions to save her sister, but her quality of overprotective towards Michael's sore butt, even after knowing his true nature... made her seemed annoying. Her actions of releasing her deranged sister had caused hatred amongst others in-universe and amongst readers, but the story later gives her a much more light by making her having a Heel Realization. After all, the author states that this is a vital part of story, and recently with her Crowning Moment of Awesome, he had a point there. **The biggest Base-Breaking character so far is none other than Carl Robinson, starting as a dark and cruel jerk, who seemed to retain his own free will even if he was possessed by the Malice of Moloch. Therefore, he was once Unintentionally Unsympathetic, until his past flashbacks were revealed one by one, following his realistic descent into darkness which sealed his Villain Protagonist status. In spite of this, many people had questioned whether Carl would really become good again. Considering Carl's dark personality is in Gray Zone, his characteristic is highly controversial and debatable, but now he's often considered as a Jerk-ass Woobie. Recently, like Esther, his popularity rose because of the development in his personality as an Anti-Villain. *'Better than Canon:' In spite of some mild criticism of Death Arc for being a semi-ripoff of the original series, there are still some praise to the storyline for being more evolved into the mysteries that the series failed to explain, as well as fixing some problems of some original characters, including: **Betsy Ross has more screen-time in modern era, especially in Blood Moon Sub Arc. Her tender moment with Ichabod were cut, and their former relationship were just an implication. **Katrina never intends to betray Ichabod when the arc surrounding the Awakening Spell started, but is acted out of Gregory Grape's brainwashing, so was Henry. Henry was never killed, but left Sleepy Hollow. Katrina never intended to kill Ichabod from the past as a result, as the author consider it to be an act of idiocy considering how devastating it would be if Ichabod was killed. **Abbie Mills will still sacrifice herself like the controversial Season 3 finale in the original series, but her segment inside Lara still exists and is eventually returned during an accidental identity swap. *'Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:' **''Firenza Junior'' had those from Episode 1 to 5... until they were all subverted in Episode 15, a Recap Episode that served as a Retcon and explanation. It was actually revealed in the Recap Episode that most, if not all of those events were actually faked by Matt and Esther's own imagination, and the real event was much, much gritter. ***The first five episodes of Firenza Junior has some of those in all of its comical moment, but the biggest one was how Magilou meeting Maria, with the two sprouting Gratitude Chinese at each other and Magilou treated Maria as her greatest fan. Word of God confirmed it was a result of his immature writing and inability to find a correct route in Firenza Junior before he took a Darker and Edgier route akin to Sword of Kings level, and in the Recap Episode started after London Battle, it was actually revealed it was all Matt Butcher's own absurd imagination, since he regarded Magilou's presence as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment in-universe itself, so he had imagined what if Magilou's debut in the story would be much funnier... with no involvement of dangerous creatures that was chasing her. ***Maria's presence in Esther's royal coronation feast seemed to be a sudden and absurd moment for her to do so, but in the same Recap Episode, it was revealed that Caterina Sforza (upon finding out Maria had revived) told Maria about Esther and ordered her to inform Esther about the Firenza Blood and the true nature of Michael. It happened after Sforza caught a minor group of Inquisitors who planned to poison Esther under the instruction of Cardinal Fransesco di Medici, who always resented Langdon Orphans for being unorthodox and Melancholia for being the Pope's right-hand. When Maria and Abel (who introduced herself to Maria) insisted upon taking Esther away from Michael, Sforza claimed that it would cause too much disarray within the Church, and it was not the time to fully provoke Michael yet. All they needed to do was to keep Esther and others alive so that they would serve greater purpose. If Esther had rejected Maria, Sforza planned to make Esther remain at Michael's side in order to see her tasting her own medicine of foolishness, before the rebels saved her when she finally regretted their decision. It showed an unhinged "Cruel to be Kind" type of her dark side of Cardinal Caterina Sforza that even Maria was disturbed. As a result, Maria made Esther stayed in the side of Langdon Orphans until Esther and Mary Spencer arrived under the threats of the assassins from KnightWalker Family, of which Maria and Sforza mistook it as a chance for Esther to quit Michael's side. However, Esther hadn't (just like Carl suspected early on), and Maria still regretted the day for her bad judgement and not hearing Carl's warning. *'Catharsis Factor:' Many fans cheers for Lady Van Tassel's punishment at the end of The Cranes Arc. She was chained inside Purgatory by Moloch and being tortured day and night. Considering what she had done to Ichabod and Katrina, she deserves every second of it. *'Character Rerailment:' After undergoing a negative reception for being an obnoxious main hero, Carl Robinson (again) became much more sensible in audiences' POV that he joined the side of villains and became more aggressive to make his character development better. *'Complete Monster:' Has its own page. *'Counterpart Comparison:' **The Team Witness and La Nueva Familia de Arzonia has much of similarities in their membership and their missions, in spite of being inside different eras. According to Word of God, Maria Arzonia is a future version of Ichabod Crane, Matt Butcher is a future version of Abbie Mills, while Carl Robinson is a future version of Jenny Mills, and so on. **The Firenza Junior is compared to Batman: Arkham Knight, with Maria as Batman, Matt as Gordon, Carl as the Arkham Knight, Nio as the Joker, Michael as Scarecrow, and Melancholia as Ra's Al-Ghul. *'Captain Obvious Reveal:' Many people already discovered Michael Langdon as the Unknown Grand Grimoire Figure due to Late-Arrival Spoilers on Michael's page. *'Creepy Awesome Characters:' **So far, some of the story's main villains like Michael Langdon, Moloch, Phyllis Peach and Melancholia counts as such. **'Helene Hawthorn'. While she is an Anti-Villain and is under possession with the Stone of Wisdom's effect, her sadism are mostly out of her own free will and is full of Cold Ham tendency for being a Mad Artist and Monster Clown in her core. She often gives several moments of Horrifying the Horror and expressed psychotic giggle all the time. However, when her line was crossed, like having her face revealed or seeing children being harmed, would push her towards the edge and made her kill people without any hesitation. Still, she is an Affably Evil character who would give children treats and present her guests with harmless magic tricks. As long as you don't push her Berserk Button, she is quite docile, mostly. **'Nether Sorensen the Demon Prince' is an expy of Evolt and N-Daguva-Zeba combined, who started a killing game upon all of the planets that UKA conquered to purge it from any lifeforms, as well as a Card-Carrying Villain and Hate Sink who entertained himself from seeing his victims squealing. Nevertheless, his Black Comedy moments, his Large Ham tendency and his "The Reason You Suck" Speech delivered all the time actually made him both an entertaining villain and a competent threat towards Team Witness members as well as their allies. He particularly stands out in Twelve Nethers since all his other siblings are considered to be dull and emotionless sociopaths. *'Draco in the Leather Pants:' Melancholia is originally set up to be a Hate Sink in the Old Script without any redeeming quality, but as the story progressed, her development into a much more complicated, more collected and more likable well-intentioned Extremist had earned her popularity (just like her seemly "good" counterpart, Plaisir Permafrost, who is less evil, but is described as a cynical Broken Bird who no longer believed in humanity or Maria Arzonia's belief of God). The CIS Productions all agreed she is one of the most enjoyable villains in the series so far in spite of her monstrous plans. *'Ensembled Darkhorse:' See here. *'Growing the Beard:' The main story suffers from Early Installment Weirdness until Lady Van Tassel instigated her final plan, and later there came The Corbin Files that resolved many problems and loose ends caused by the majority of story narrative in The Cranes Arc. The Death Arc becomes more refined in Haunting Past Sub Arc. **As for the spin-off, Firenza Junior is more of an example, particularly starting from Episode 5 where the story becomes much darker than its Denser and Wackier ordinary tone, while filling plot holes and threads throughout the narrative. *'Harsher on the Hindsight:' **The cancellation of Sleepy Hollow series during the storyline's production caused many members of CIS Productions gone sad, given to the fact that it once was a good series until it suffered from Seasonal Rot, a problem that the storyline is trying to fix. **Cases exists when a MAD Section is cancelled and delayed due to the anniversaries of historical tragedy (like Nanking Massacre) and recent tragic news. **An upcoming episode with the description Sleepy Hollow Museum, as well as Helene Hawthorn's lament among the loss of cultural values, only makes things just harsher and sadder to whoever that think about the recent fire of National Museum of Brazil. *'Hilarious on the Hindsight:' **Recently, in July 2018, during the production of Firenza Junior spinoff, a Red Typhoon Alert was released when large area of the Southeast China was swept by Typhoon Maria, which first landed on northern Taiwan before it reaches Fujian. It's the first strong typhoon that struck China in 2018... Wait? Is "Maria" the name of this typhoon? How very interesting. *'"Holy Shit!" Quotient:' Carl's flashbacks in Firenza Junior, especially the third one, which revealed that Nio Hashiri had Carl's family and friends slaughtered, gains Carl more sympathetic qualities. However, the most shocking thing was that it was Maria Arzonia who unwillingly killed Carl's adoptive parents while being coerced by her three infamous brothers, and the action would eventually fuel the main motivation for Maria to save Carl; her atonement. **In the same story, after seemly get killed off in just one episode, Celestia Ludenberg was revealed to be still alive two episodes later, by using a doppelganger of herself to fake her death, in the same manner like Christopher Nolan's film Prestige. *'Iron Woobie:' **'Maria Arzonia' is one of the most tragic characters throughout the entire storyline for being forced into evil when she was merely a child, being stripped away from happy childhood and started to endure the pain and sorrow. Even resisting and killing her abusive evil family proves to be no avail, as she was transformed into a KnightWalker Cyborg and endured And I Must Scream situation Cavalo once endured. However, Maria later becomes a truly heroic character after her redemption, becoming an atoner who decided to atone her former sins and help others as much as possible, growing stronger and showing Character Development in the process to become a more stoic and dependable ally to both Katarina and Ichabod. **'Helene Hawthorn' is pretty much like this. Enduring isolation and sheer emptiness within her darkness, only with rats and circus "freaks" as her friends, Helene is no less tragic since she is a talent who earns this just because of her deformation. It stems into the worst after Helene lost her mother. However, Helene still believed that one day she would get her own Angel of Art and take her friends away from the corrupt underground, embracing a new future and avenging her mother's death by seeking out La Gloton's truth. In fact, the entire Merry Melody are Iron Woobies as they are all lost souls who find resolution between and within each other. *'Jerk-ass Woobie:' **'The Headless Horseman' himself was once Ichabod's best friend, Abraham Van Brunt, who turned against Ichabod after starting to believe Ichabod took his lover, Katrina, away from him. Heartbroken and enraged, Abraham believed Ichabod betrayed their friendship and started to attack his former best friend. His deflated ego, anger and jealousy fueled so much that it eventually prompted him to serve Moloch so that he could win Katrina back, thus becoming Ichabod's love rival as a result. ***However, the Horseman's loyalty to Moloch started to shake when he discovered Moloch intended to use Katrina as his vessel to revive, meaning that the Horseman still cared about Katrina and tried to protect her even if it meant it would cause punishment upon him. ***In War Arc, Abraham was gaining some points with fans due to his wanting Katrina to accept him of her own free will and telling Henry that he refuses to cause her any unnecessary pain. In addition, after knowing Katrina's reason of marrying Ichabod, of which she tried to repent her sins for killing his lover, Abraham decided to let it go as he wouldn't let Katrina to feel unease. **'Andy Brooks' had already sold his soul to Moloch when the series started, and it's strongly implied that he did it for the same promise Moloch gave to the Headless, that Moloch would give him the woman who didn't want him (in Andy's case, Abbie). He slightly redeems himself after Moloch kills and resurrects him by trying to help Abbie a few times. **'Carl Robinson' is like a futuristic version of the Headless Horseman, albeit at least with a head (until Maria unintentionally chopped it off, but he got it back). He was shown to be an unsympathetic and dull character who showed jerkish personality and harsh attitudes. However, once more of his disturbing past were shown to the light, which included his parents being killed by Maria Arzonia unwillingly, his attitude and actions were explained and he was shown to be more understandable. Even so, his personality was affected by the darkness so much that he could never fully become the once honored and cheerful man like he was before. **'Plaisir Permafrost', who is the original counterpart of Melancholia, went even further towards Carl as she lost her entire family. Fearing Moloch's power, Plaisir had to worked for him in order to keep herself alive, while Melancholia served in the role of defying Moloch's dark influence as the two personalities started to assimilated. As a survivor of the Tribulation, she later served Michael Langdon to raise Michael as a new king and undermined Moloch after she was done with him. She was aware of Melancholia's plan and allowed it, since she believed it was the only way to seek vengeance upon the world and Gods who thrown her away. Unlike Carl, Plaisir chose to fight against Maria and cursed the Guide Spirit during her Villainous Breakdown, saying Maria ideas were faulty and the humanity should be purified in Melancholia's own way. Considering how much she suffered, it was apparent that by such point, her sanity no longer existed. **'Christine Van Bilj', later known as Kristen Kiwifruit, is the Rival of Ichabod Crane and did many atrocities throughout the story that makes people hardly ever like her, but it was soon revealed in Haunting Past Sub Arc that Christine was used by her father and became his tool, causing her despair and sorrow took over her in the form of Entisrich, the very first Zodiac Demon in Sleepy Hollow, due to the plots made by Hubert Zodiak and Lady Van Tassel. For a long time, she was slowly controlled by this Zodiac Demon, who used her body and murdered her brother, as her own soul could only watch and scream, which no one except herself could ever hear or see. She was later used by Moloch once more and became his expandable pawn once more in spite of trying to prove herself to be valuable even as a woman. She did have many blood on her hand, but it was hard not to feel sympathy upon her. *'Launcher of a Thousand Ships:' **Practically, many female characters are shipped with Ichabod Crane and there are mild traces of both "Ichatrina" and "Ichabbie" scenes even if in this storyline, Ichabod and Katrina remains to be Official Couple while Abbie is shipped with Luke Morales instead. **'Maria Arzonia' also has many shippings in CIS Universe with many boys (and sometimes, even GIRLS) in the story due to their interactions, including her Official Couple, Matt Butcher, besides arguably the more acceptable fan ships including Krans Romа́n Tsarskiy, Carl Robinson and even including her Arch-Enemy, Michael Langdon. In LOTM: Sword of Kings, she is shipped with Katarina Couteau as well. *'Love to Hate:' **'Pedro Pineapple' is no saint and is an absolutely hated Hate Sink in-universe, but recently he gained popularity and is considered as a unique villain even for its detractors. **'Phyllis Peach' earns this status after the two-part finale of Haunting Past Sub Arc to show her subtle skills of manipulation and ability to weasel her crimes without noticed by anyone. Yes, she is the cause of the Order of Flourish's tragedy and did unforgivable things, but that doesn't stop her to become a totally dangerous crime master. **Sorensen. See Creepy Awesome Characters from above. *'Magnificent Bastard:' Since this story focuses more on strategy when compared to LOTM: Sword of Kings, the villains from this storyline are also full of manipulators, strategists and intelligent beings. **The Big Bad, Moloch, is considered to be such for plotting a plan to dominate the world and wage war for a long, long time, even longer than the age of humanity. Using his avatars as his pawns, Moloch set in motions throughout the timelines and dimensions, with the Horsemen of the Apocalypse - which he Reforged into Minions - by his side, Moloch definitely stands out as the most direct threat towards the Team Witness. **His Dragon-in-Chief, Michael Langdon, isn't any better, if not anything worse. Being able to trick Katarina Couteau into believing him, Michael tricks Eckidina KnightWalker into believing him as well, playing the both sides on his palm before he finally reveals his true nature as soon as Serilda of the Abaddon is revived, in order to summon the Horseman of Death back in Sleepy Hollow. His only failure in The Corbin Files is his failure to kill the Witnesses and Katarina, but still his manipulation pushed him towards the Holy Throne of Vatican, making him the Pope and the first CIS villain who has an onscreen victory. **'Melancholia', Michael's own Dragon, pushes this towards another level when she and her faction, the Langdon Orphans, manipulates Carl Robinson into turning against Maria Arzonia while setting a delusional plan to destroy the world and make it anew with Firenza Blood, Supreme Croatoan Virus and FOLIE. It's also shown that Melancholia is able to manipulate every Big Bad Wannabe (most notably like Fiamma of the Right and Celestia Ludenberg) in her palm, and when she discovered something bad, she remained modest and subtle, but had already set up a plan to get rid of their threats ever since the beginning. By using Carl's hatred and cynicism, Melancholia breaks the seal of hatred on Carl, turning him just as same as Maria as a KnightWalker Cyborg, also a delusional tool that tries to destroy one single target along with almost anyone on their way. **'Christine Van Bilj' is the Rival of Ichabod, sharing both intelligence and skills to be an evil genius, and her skills finally get demonstrated after she was separated with her Zodiac Demon and got fully revived. Not only she constructed many Monsters of the Week after her return back to the story, Christine also assumed the role behind the Shadow Warriors and the Order of the Blood Moon, forcing Andy Brooks & Luke Morales to succumb into their total fear. After that, she instigated a massive blackout within the town of Sleepy Hollow and release the Headless Horseman by breaking the Free-masonic spells. **'Phyllis Peach', also known as , is sort of a female version of Professor James Moriarty and manipulates villains and heroes on different sides to slew each other, until she herself gained her own goals to make the world in Hell, largely for her own amusement and delusions. Especially during War Arc, Phyllis managed to get away from police radar by distracting police attentions and framed other person for the crime, using two years of preparations to make up this plan. **'Vanifer' is the self-proclaimed Empress that ruled the Empire of Fiery Pit, as well as the Prophet of Fire. Her ambition sounds ridiculous and arrogant, but turned out it acted pretty well. Vanifer's Dark Empire had become the central faction among the entire Elemental Evil cults, turning into the main villains of the entire Elemental Evil Saga, completely overshadowing other three prophets and even her own more mundane master, Vizeran DeVir, who is more like an Orcus on His Throne that only does manipulation. In her first appearance in Scorch spinoff as the Dragon of DeVir, Vanifer not only fought equal against Maria Arzonia equally, but also played strategy by dragging Maria into a Curb-Stomb Battle, via forcing her into the other three Prophet's power field. Vanifer then seized the chance to attack Maria, eventually winning the battle. **'Jasmine Porcelain' is a much more subtle example since she actually... hardly do anything at the beginning of the story besides dealing with Gar Shatterkeel, taunting Aerisi Kalinoth, taunting Drizzt Do'Urden, forcing Vanifer and Valindra Shadowmantle to make peace, and so on. However, when things entered Pandora Arc, her true intention started to surface. Not only she assisted Moloch to take down the Hidden One and bring back the Four Horsemen, Porcelain also took control over some parts of the Empire of Fiery Pit by making peace between Valindra and Vanifer. She was also secretly planning to bring Lolth back to mortal realm, using both sides of the Witnesses and Moloch to achieve her own goal, before killing Vizeran DeVir right in front of Ichabod and forcing Vanifer to join force with the United Kingdom of America completely. *'Moe:' Many teenage and child characters in this story are considered as lovely characters, but young adults like Maria, Matt, Seth, Helene, Eva and Selina have their time of cuteness as well. Ichabod, Abbie and Jenny were also lovely when they were children. *'No Yay:' **The pairing of Hubert Zodiak x Lady Van Tassel. Even Ara Astaroth x B1-Killer Kampfdroide Unit-CM 130 hadn't fall into such a trope. The fact is, not only neither of them are likable saints, but also their unhealthy and perverse relationship is based upon love affair as well as their own perverted nature. We must never forget that Lady Van Tassel is a married woman, who had seduced her husband and killed his former wife. There were implication that she had been having sex with Reverend Steelwick (off-screen in this storyline due to censorship) in order to create her alibi in the Headless Horseman's killing spree. As for Zodiak, he is also a man made of pure desire and obsession and devoid of true love. His affection towards Lady Van Tassel was merely out of lust and domination, no true love. It was cemented further when Zodiak remolded Lady Van Tassel into the core of his new Zodiac Demon while fantasizing how cute she seemed under such a state! **An Subverted Example: In the old script, the shipping of Maria Arzonia x Matt Butcher can be quite unnerving considering Maria is a mere teenager while Matt in the old script was already an adult nearly 30 years old. This was eventually subverted after the author reduced Matt's age 7 years younger to keep up with the storyline, while saying their relationships were more like siblings and Platonic relationships as Maria rejected sexual tension. **'Pedro Pineapple x Selina Strawberry' is particularly made for an impossible shipping considering Pedro's status as a flirtatious Casanova and often sexually harassing women that he considered beautiful, even to someone underage like Maria Arzonia (though he's unaware she's in fact a 17-year-old teenager instead of a young adult, something he was apologetic when he discovered the fact). Fortunately enough, no one would care about him or his desire anymore when Selina had him brutally slain, leaving his soul tormented in Hell by succubus courtesy of Astaroth King. *'Rescued From the Scrappy Heap:' Due to its length and source material, no doubt there were characters remained unlikable in both this storyline and the original series. However, when things happened, those cast would usually earn their second chance and gave a backstory to redeem themselves, or become a villain that fit better on their character. **'Carl Robinson' after his backstory full of murder and betrayal was revealed, making him a much more sympathetic character beneath his cold, harsh and distrusting personality, considering he became Unintentionally Unsympathetic after his murder of Mary Spencer, of which its motive is also explained. His recent characterization of being an aggressive Anti-Villain cemented this even further, with viewers praised his role and character in London Battle Arc as an aggressive and ruthless antagonist as well as a Headless Horseman-esque character. **'Christine Van Bilj', after her backstory and her full details of Split Personality Disorder were revealed, showing she was rather another victim of her father's naked ambition which eventually made her Gone Mad From Revelation, and the crimes of murdering her brother will be pinned on her inner insanity that formed Evil Christine, while the real Christine was at least falls into Even Evil Has Loved One with her respect and care towards Colin. She would be saved further after her revival, with her former unpopular character was explained to be a result of a Zodiac Demon possession, earning her a Perspective Flip in Purgatory Sub Arc. **'Betsy Ross' in the original series is considered as one of the least favorite characters in Sleepy Hollow for lack of Character Development, but the storyline actually made Betsy more important in The Corbin Files and Blood Moon Sub Arc due to her transformation into a monster and her Heroic Sacrifice to fight against Christine. Some readers are feeling sorry for Betsy's fate and are also glad that Betsy's saved soul returns to her own timeline and twists her unfortunate fate. **The storyline version's Nio Hashiri receives hatred amongst CIS Productions member on this wiki, being the worst villain in the Firenza Junior spinoff story due to her Alpha Bitch personality just like Eckidina KnightWalker before Eckidina Arc, as she is being someone who only does evil for the fun and full enjoyment for herself, regardless of how much of severely she brought suffering upon others. However, the recent episode of Firenza Junior made her a much more manipulative and cunning person instead of being a flat psychopath like Aki Honda. Her current status is a Love to Hate villain. **'Esther Blanchett', originally one of The Scrappy because of her blind devotion towards Michael Langdon, had been rescued following the first episode of London Battle sub arc, with her own Crowning Moments of Awesome and her apparent Heel-Face Turn. The peppering Characterization Marches On also helps with her feelings towards Abel Nightroad eventually redeemed her from her seemingly ever-lasting blindness on what Michael Langdon was trying to do, finally fleshed out as a genuinely heroic and capable character and fit the spinoff's central theme of atonement and redemption. **It remained to be see if Katrina Crane would be rescued due to her upcoming new design, newly displayed skills and improved personality after the end of War Arc, but the viewers are more than supportive towards this new characterization. Since saving Katrina's character is one of the main purpose of this storyline, time will tell if it ever worked. *'Ron the Death Eater:' Daniel Reynolds, due to his unpopularity in some fans from the original series for being a Replacement Scrappy of Frank Irving, this storyline made him a pawn of villains rather than Abbie's former love interest. **'Lamort', the Planet Sorensen-444 version of Katrina is this to the original series' Katrina, turning her into a more hypocritical and manipulative conspirator from the start, instead of a Well-Intentioned Extremist presented on the Prime Earth's Katrina in LOTM: WoSH. *'Spiritual Adaptation:' This is a combination of Sleepy Hollow, American Horror Story and Once Upon A Time all together, but there are also more and more additional contents added to the story, making it larger and more original. *'Take That, Scrappy!:' The story is good at making hated minor characters antagonistic roles - even if they were never antagonists to begin with, both in this storyline and the original series (if they were beyond Rescued from the Scrappy Heap). That included Lillian Lime and Daniel Reynolds, respectively. **Lamort, the Zodiac Demon version of Katrina Crane from Planet Sorensen-444, is practically a result of the original version's betrayal going succeeded, turning her into a full-fledged psychopathic demon. This version is also a Ron the Death Eater version of the original Katrina Crane, acting as a manipulative and horrible psychopath rather than a benevolent witch. *'They Copied It, So It Sucks:' Zigzagged. People points out that some of the Death Arc and Purgatory Arc episodes are considered as a ripoff to the original season 1, while some The Corbin Files are ripoff to A Certain Magical Index and American Horror Story. Nevertheless, the story will deviate from the original plot-line as the time progresses, not to mention that they're already additional contents to tie the story up. *'They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:' Christine Van Bilj, before Haunting Past Sub Arc that fleshed out more of her character, was considered to be a great disappointment in Blood Moon Sub Arc for being an one-dimensional character as well as an Anti-Climax Boss, even by the author himself. It promoted Officer Candy Apple to bring her back and made her a person with two personalities in order to flesh out her character, adding more flashbacks and revealing that she was more complicated that she seemed to be. The recent reception towards her seemed to get warmed up. *'The Scrappy:' **'Lady Van Tassel', the Season 1's main villain, is widely hated because of her status of being a greedy villain who only tried to pursuit Van Tassel's family legacy, driving her into manipulating the Horseman of Death and killing, corrupting and destroying many people's life. Not only Moloch's imprisonment and torture upon her makes readers rejoiced, but also, Michael Langdon's presence in the next entry as a Contrasting Sequel Antagonist makes her looks inferior. **'Entisrich' (in Blood Moon Sub Arc) was considered as such for her remorseless fratricide, her spoiled and arrogant Big Bad Wannabe attitude, and her manipulation upon the original Christine who is much calmer, matured and likable because of her Big Sister Instinct. *'Squick:' **If he thinks himself not perverted enough, Pedro Pineapple even started trying to flirt Maria Arzonia out of anyone... and his implied backstory as a Casanova who sexually harass pretty women... Well, you'll understand how much the author hates sexual predators and perverts when you learn more of this guy. **Speak of Maria, her brutally scarred state in The Corbin Files is nauseous enough, and the Retcon of Firenza Junior shows the Cyborg Maria unmasked with her face covered in thick pus out of her rotten flesh wound. **Entisrich's disturbing and ruthless nature exhibited within the finale of Blood Moon Sub Arc is considered as one of the most disturbing scenes, along with her torture upon Betsy Ross, where she made a snuff film out of it and forced Abbie to watch. *'Unexpected Character:' Practically, in Firenza Junior, no one would expect that Arzonia Brothers returned in a flashback of Carl, being the person behind his adoptive parents' murder as well as his Start of Darkness. The Creator's Lies that Carl's parents died in car crash only amplified this. *'Unintentionally Unsympathetic:' Formerly happens on Carl Robinson, especially after he killed Mary Spencer, made many people thought he was actually a Jerk-ass who has no sympathetic quality in spite of being given one, but later stories revealed more of his past and all the betrayal he suffered, which severely broke him and made him distrusting and cynical, explaining the reason behind his hatred to Maria and his murder on Spencer, all related to those suffering he endured. *'Values Dissonance:' The story contains more occidental values on culture, economy and politics due to written by a Chinese author. Whenever the story mentions Taiwan, it's described as a region of China since the writer is from China. However, this is not an attempt to start an argument. *'What Do You Mean, It's not for Kids?:' Some elements of the story - particularly fighting scenes and Monster of the Week concept - were taken from Tokusatsu (primarily Kamen Rider franchise) and Shounen manga mostly for kids and teenagers, but upon getting into it, you'll quickly realize its main tone is prone to Seinen, and for very good reasons. One of the major inspiration of this story is Kamen Rider Build, which is described as a Darker and Edgier installment within Neo-Heisei Era Riders that is prone to the more violent tone of Showa Riders. *'What Do You Mean, It's not Political?:' IMPORTANT NOTE: The following section only details the author's (a Chinese) own viewpoint and may or may not represent the global viewpoint, since everyone has their difference in political sense. **The story tends to avoid political difference and political correction due to the author having a different viewpoint towards capitalism from occidental sense, in favor of introducing and emphasizing cultural, historical and artistic elements, trying to distill the political sense in the original series. However, in 2019 when the Hong Kong protests take place, the story takes a much more cynical and satirical view towards Western democracy, especially the one in the USA after the 2016 election, as well as the political and media accusation towards China's human rights (something that many ethnic groups in China and even the foreign tourists had debunked) during the protests in Hong Kong in 2019. **At this point, the story then tends to a more criticizing view towards American democracy than the original series, via introducing the hypocritical Gladius Grapefruit into the story and establish his abilities to suppress the memories in Sleepy Hollow residents. There are also satires towards anti-China political moves, including the separationists in Hong Kong and Taiwan independence movements that are self-proclaimed "pro-democracy groups" while in truth causing nothing but corruption, difference, De-Sinicization and anarchy in China, making them to be considered as traitors to their motherland. **Several Chinese characters in the story are also showing the author's viewpoint, like the mysterious Crimson Scorpion also implies that the media is not telling the truth, but what they want people in the West to believe, and adding that the only way to bust the lies is to roam the land of China and feel its true atmosphere. *'The Woobie:' The Crane Family and the Mills Family both in general. Category:TVTropes' LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow Category:CIS Productions